Chapter 32 #2
Cash palmed Ava’s waist and planted a kiss on her lips, then made funny faces at the baby and kissed her nose.
“I need to talk to Knox,” Ava said to her fiancé as I packed away all but the dirty diaper.
“Want me to take this cutie downstairs so you can have a few minutes?” Cash asked me.
“Sure,” I said, wondering what Ava was so determined to talk to me about that we’d need privacy. There’d be no shortage of people downstairs willing to look after my daughter though. “Be good, Bug,” I told Junie.
Ava transferred June to Cash, kissed both of them again, sent them on their way, then turned to me.
“What’s going on?” I asked her. “Did you hate the last chapter I sent you?” I’d sent it late last night, managed to string some words together over the past few days while Juniper napped, not ready to confess to Ava I was on my own with childcare. It was admittedly not my best work.
“I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I won’t hate it. Dork. I came up first and foremost to do exactly what I said—make sure Cash was playing nice.”
“Did you put him up to apologizing?”
“He saw the light mostly on his own,” Ava said, making me laugh. She perched on the love seat, so I pulled the desk chair out and sat.
“Thanks for any part you had in it. That’s a weight off my shoulders,” I said.
“He’s a stubborn one, but I love him. What’s this I hear about Quincy not nannying for you anymore?”
There it was. The real reason she wanted to talk.
I frowned. I’d mentioned Quincy’s leaving in passing at the table, but Ava had been in the other room.
I’d made sure of it. She was the only one I’d ever fessed up to about my involvement with my Quincy, the only one who would read more into it than just my nanny moving on. “You have good ears.”
“Hayden told me. But I knew something was wrong even before she said anything. You’re not yourself today.”
“I’m doing okay,” I lied. I’d gone to great lengths to be upbeat and holiday-cheerish all afternoon.
She narrowed her eyes at me and crossed her arms. “I don’t buy it, but if you don’t want to talk about your feelings, I get it.” She said it like a challenge.
“No feelings to talk about.” Another lie. Ava knew it, and I knew it.
“What happened, Knox? I thought she was staying until mid-January.”
I looked away, debating whether to open up.
“She decided not to go back to school. She’s staying in Dragonfly Lake.”
“Because of you?”
I winced. “She used the L word.”
“And how did you respond?”
“I told her I couldn’t let her throw away her future.”
Ava cringed visibly. “I was afraid of that.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That you’d push her away.” She leaned her head back into the cushion, her eyes closed, as if there was no hope for me.
“You and I talked about it,” I reminded her. “The age difference?”
Her eyes popped open. “She changed everything up when she told you her feelings.”
“We’re still in different life stages, feelings or not.”
“You were worried about her missing out on college life. She decided against college life altogether. It sounds like she’s not so much in frat-party mode after all.”
“I can’t let her throw that away for me.”
“That’s not your decision to make.”
“Maybe not, but I don’t have to support it or make it easier for her to make that mistake.”
“Who’s to say it’s a mistake, Knox? She might be younger than you, but she’s the boss of her life.”
I clenched my jaw, unable to argue with that, but still…
“This might be presumptive,” Ava said, “but it seems like you’re trying to do the same thing your mom did.”
I reared my head back. “My mom? What does this have to do with her?”
She leaned forward, her forehead furrowed. “With all due respect, because I suspect she meant well, she made a giant decision when she was pregnant that affected Simon’s future and yours.”
“Sure. The way she saw it, she sacrificed for my father’s sake. Because she knew he’d be happy with Nita, and she didn’t want to intrude on their life.”
“What if she had let Simon make that decision?” Ava asked quietly.
“He never would’ve agreed not to have his child in his life,” I said without hesitation.
“I think so too.” She stared at me as her meaning sank in.
“You think I’m doing the same thing,” I said.
“You are.”
“You think I should let Quincy quit school before she even starts and work for me full-time.”
“I think the school part is Quincy’s decision. Whether you employ her is yours.”
I sat forward and leaned my elbows on my thighs, trying to argue in my head that my situation was different from my mom’s. I couldn’t. Not if I was honest.
I growled, burning to argue. “What if she eventually regrets dropping out? Giving up a teaching career? For me?”
Ava put her hand on my forearm, and I met her gaze as she asked, “What if she doesn’t? What if Quincy’s your one, Knox?”
I swallowed, trying to keep my face blank as I flinched inwardly.
Her expression softened. “Tell me something. Do you love her?”
Running my hands over my face, I let my mind churn over what I already suspected. What I didn’t want to face.
“If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be in a knot over her leaving,” Ava said.
A knot. That was an understatement. My appetite was off. My sleep was nonexistent. My mood was shit.
I took in a deep, lung-expanding breath and let the admission sink in.
I did.
I loved Quincy.
I let out a halfhearted laugh that sounded more like a scoff.
I loved her spirit and her spunkiness and her take on the world.
I loved her with my daughter. I loved her naked and writhing underneath me.
I loved her when she fell asleep during a movie.
I loved her courage to tell me how she felt and her braveness to be different, make different choices.
I loved when she gave me a hard time for being old and stuffy. I just…loved her.
“Yeah,” I finally said, my voice wobbling with the weight of the realization. “I do love her.”
“I knew it! Knox, this is so great.”
“This…” My gut tightened and started churning. “It’s not so great.”
“What?” she said, her voice pitching high.
“I don’t know what to do about it. I think…” The look on Quincy’s face before she’d left my house was burned into my mind. “Pretty sure I screwed everything up.”
She studied me. “You might have to do some groveling to get her back.”
“Groveling how?” I asked, my shoulders sagging more.
“Pay close attention,” she said, pulling her legs up on the love seat and getting comfortable. “You’ll need to know this for the romance arc in our book anyway, so take notes. You’re about to put your heart on the line.”